Grand Champeen

Dial T for This

(In Music We Trust)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

Grand Champeen are an old-fashioned bunch, to the extent that they proudly advertise the fact that they avoided ProTools in the making of Dial T for This as a selling point.  Their new record pines for simpler times in rock and roll when Midwestern bands like The Replacements and early-era Soul Asylum and, later, early-era Wilco were banging out hook-happy, heartfelt rock that sounded good crackling out of a radio.

Truth be known, those times are still around, so Grand Champeen aren’t necessarily leaving the grid by rejecting ProTools.  But they’re still wise to steer clear of computers, as they aren’t a band that would benefit from elaborate polish or studio trickery.  Their charms are organic and straightforward, as on “Nice Of You To Join Us,” in which frontman Channing Lewis shows the audience a flash of Jeff Tweedy similarity.

The album starts deceptively, with a quick burst of guitars that seem to announce that Grand Champeen are ready to rock and rock raw.  But the curtains quickly pull back to something a little more pop-friendly, and even though the guitars still propel the action, there are melodic vocals and delicate orchestrations that give “What It Beats” an accessible sheen.

Lewis doesn’t have tremendous vocal range, which keeps propulsive pop-rock songs like “Raul Vela” from hitting the heights they seem to have in their crosshairs.  He’s better off on snappy, sunny songs like “The Songs You Want to Hear,” which projects a similar head-nodding vibe as OK Go or Fountains of Wayne.  Best of all, Grand Champeen keep the album mush-free, preventing a few typically mandatory soggy ballads from disrupting the momentum.